Many other bloggers and social-networkers have spread the word about the abrupt banishment of KUSF from the San Francisco airwaves, but if you haven't heard 'til now, this is truly a travesty. On Tuesday, January 18, the University of San Francisco ordered KUSF's transmitter to be turned off, removed staff from the station, and changed the locks. A deal had been brokered to sell KUSF's 90.3 FM frequency to a classical music network from Southern California. No warning was given, and now one of the greatest cities in the world is without its only full-power freeform community radio station. Over the years, KUSF has been one of the handful of very best radio stations, with tons of great underground music of all flavors, and an incredible array of cultural offerings in many languages. It was only last summer that Rice University in Houston made a move to sell the license and transmitter of Freeform KTRU, causing immediate mobilization of KTRU staff and supporters to block the sale and keep a student and community resource from becoming another dentist's office classical music radio station. The same kind of effort is quickly under way by KUSF's staff and supporters. Longtime KUSF DJ Carolyn Keddy joined me on the air this week to talk about what's happening...and a little about what got her involved with KUSF 20 years ago and what kept her motivated to stay so long.

I'll never forget the day that I first heard The Consumers...it was winter holiday break from UC Davis, and fellow KDVS DJ Todd Urick (of the "Hometown Atrocities" show) and I were driving around the Bay Area blowing mad money on as much rad garagepunk and Japanese hardcore records I could afford, plus Killed by Death and Bloodstains compilations. We'd shopped and spent 'til we could no more...or so we thought! The moment that Carolyn played The Consumers on KUSF, we got off I-80 in El Cerrito--yes, we were on our way home--and turned back around to double back to Amoeba in Berkeley, where we found our copies of All My Friends Are Dead. We bought one each for ourselves, plus a copy for KDVS which we still treasure and play often to this day. Is that a record-nerd story or what? Thank you, Carolyn, for this disease you've given me.

In other news, a crucial piece of American glue-wave history has dropped...Black Gladiator and Slovenly present the dawn of Electric Crush, perfectly preserved in the hot dry Las Vegas air since 2000 when Dropouts in a Drug Haze originally debuted as a cassette. Now on 12" 45 RPM vinyl, this screeching, blazing menace of hot guitar riffs, punched-up drums, unhinged howl-at-the-moon psycho vokills, and odd bits of budget electro booyar is sure to melt all your earwax and get your fist pumping and ass shaking. It makes perfect sense that this retrospective release would follow the revelatory future-primitive 7"es by Vex Ruffin & the Lo-Fi Jerkheads.

Also, Pink Reason is back, and stronger than ever. Bolstered by the walloping rhythm section of Pygmy Shrews, Kevin shows that marriage has not softened Pink Reason. This is the most aggressively rockin' Reason yet, and the best EP since the very first. If you sorta just forgot 'cos so much other music has happened since Kevin slowed down releasing music, then you need to hear this...a loud and clear bulletin that Pink Reason is still one of the best bands on the planet. Can't wait to hear more!

One of my longtime favorite artists, songwriters, and guitarists and his wife need help. Dan Melchior has been a friend of the show for a while, which is quite an honor for me because I've hung on every riff and lyric he's played since the dawn of Das Menace and always wanted to know more during the Broke Revue days. His wife Letha has been battling cancer since fall, and that's put their lives on hold and put their finances in peril. Scott of SS Records created a Blogspot account--http://melchiorfund.blogspot.com/--with a link to donate to Dan and Letha via Paypal and wrote these words about the situation...

As you probably know, the life of a musician playing independent music is not a lucrative one. So when one hits a snag in life that taps the resources and makes working an outside job impossible, times get really hard. This is where Dan and Letha Melchior find themselves right now. You know Dan as one of the best underground rock & roll songwriters around. He's released records on labels such as In the Red, Hangman, S.S., Siltbreeze, Daggerman and others, and played with his bands the Broke Review and Das Menace, as well as Billy Childish and Holly Golightly. Letha is a member of Tretetam and Das Menace, a former member of Ruby Falls, and contributes to a lot of Dan's record jacket art/design, not to mention Dan's partner.

A few months ago Letha was diagnosed with cancer and since then she's been in a pretty hard fight, requiring some operations and much treatment. She's been unable to work. Dan's role as her caretaker has taken him out of the work force. Letha has basic medical insurance but that really doesn't mean a whole lot in the USA. Debt is piling up. And the state that they live in, North Carolina, doesn't offer much in the way of aid. Dan and Letha need our help.

Independent of Dan and Letha, we are asking people to help them out. The Melchior name has given us a whole lot of great music; now it is time to give a little back. We know times are hard for a lot of people, so we are asking that you give what you can afford. Please know that the money donated to Dan and Letha goes directly to them via their paypal account.

One of the things that's struck over the past few years is how Dan has printed his name on inner sleeves and back covers of records as Dan Rodman Melchior...as if he's taken his wife's last name much as she has taken his. It's hardly a concern to men that women must go through all this trouble to take our last names in marriage. We mostly just go on like life's hardly changed. Very few cultures have done it differently. Some indigenous tribes of the Americas did. Jack White did it...or did he? He's really mucked that one up. No telling what his motive was, but considering Dan's case, I think it speaks pretty profoundly about how much he loves Letha and honors her.

I still find myself having to explain to people born after 1985 why Dan Melchior is awesome. But then again, these are people who still enjoy eating at Taco Bell, and I also hafta explain to them why taquerias and supermercado lunch counters are so great. Consider that MLK quote in light of this travesty.

The latest and greatest SS Records wares include this astounding retrospective release by England's Sperm Wails, first heard by many of us when people started sharing this awesome YouTube video...

Pre-dating the American neo-no-wave and noise-rock zeitgeists by a decade to a decade-and-a-half, this came as quite a shock. And it sounds even fresher full-blast on vinyl grooves with room to breathe. Surely, it woulda been sad if this song remained unattainable on enduring vinyl. It was only ever available on a rare flexi back in the day.

The new Duchess of Saigon is an essential Sacto history lesson...the best of three Woodhouse recording sessions before a debut LP project was aborted. Fans of Reading Rainbow, I like 'em alright, too, but...this blows that outta the water! Fans of the Velvets, Beat Happening, and Half Japanese simply MUST! And Soriano bowls a turkey with a new Los Llamarada 7". Dark, deranged, brilliant!

This week's late-80s content was inspired by SS's choice to issue that Sperm Wails. He always says this a wrongly maligned time for raw, real rock 'n' roll. I was guilty of writing off that half-decade as the era that marred a would-be-great Steel Pole Bathtub LP with prevailing studio production values. But, indeed, I was overlooking a lotta great stuff. The Aussies and Scandinavians were especially fruitful during this time, it seems. More of this to come in the next AFS episodes.

No garagepunker's ever reinvented the wheel 'til these Jerkheads came around and cut/pasted some ruling rockin' roll sorta-breakbeat-style. I dropped "Volcano" on an unsuspecting dance club crowd, and before slipping into straight-up minimal/darkwave/synth-mode, it was the Jerkheads who got the crowd moving more than any other record I played all night.

Don't presume I worship the ground every Aussie rocker's ever walked on because of all the Aussie content over the last couple years. Here's provin' ya':"Put your drinks down....Let's punk it up a little bit....YEAH! ALRIGHT!"

With the Mayyors dead, G. Green starting over in v5.0, and the English Singles still talking only very wistfully about making their debut 7", 2011 might be the year of Buk Buk Bigups in Sacto. Having begun as the solo project of Mom's main man Aaron, blending funk, electro, psych, glitter, and Krauty grooves, the Bigups expanded into a full band last summer and quickly became one of the very best and funnest new bands in the Pacific Time Zone. Last week, Fuzzbox Flynn and I had the honor of DJing a party for the Bigups' video premiere and full-length cassette release. This cassette begs to be released on vinyl. Have a peep at the video...

Every year, during the first week of January, I hear an LP for the first time and regret not hearing it soon enough to include it in my best-of-YYYY list. For 2010, that record is Mercy by Deaf Wish.

But now that it's 2011, we are finally gonna see what Sexy Prison foresaged almost four years ago when their tour theme was 2011 in 2007. What can we glean from their opus from their 2nd LP, "Universal Order of 2011"? Is it a hopeful promise or a warning? I think it depends on whether you know how to party, and what is your tolerance level for unusual levels of radness. A great first test is coming to Davis and Sacto on Saturday, January 8 when an epic double-dip happens. First, at the DAM Haus (503 E Street in Davis) it's Gestapo Khazi, Warm Streams, and the debut of the new lineup of G. Green now featuring lead guitar by Rod Meyer, formerly of The Hospitals and Eat Skull. Food will be provided by Warm Streams vokillist and traveling gourmet chef Joshua Ploeg. This show runs from 7pm to 10pm. Pick up the first half of a raffle ticket when you donate a whole integer amount of U.S. dollars to the DAM Haus donation jar. Then take it to The Hub in Sacramento (1819 23rd Street) where NYC's The Babies (side-project of Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls and members of Woods (and it's better live than either main vehicle)), The Mantles, and White Fence will play at 11pm sharp on shared equipment. Pick up the 2nd half of your raffle ticket. If you attend both shows, you are entered into a raffle to win free admission to every KDVS Presents @ The Hub show through summer 2011 (a programme including Ty Segall, NoBunny, Quintron, and too many other rad bands to list).

I know you're excited for Cheveu's 1000 LP to drop, so here's one more taste...with some tasty string music!

...and that's not the only song on 1000 to feature real strings! Whereas the first LP copped a riff from Tuxedomoon--"Hello, Friends" coulda been based on "No Tears"--1000's resemblance to Winston Tong & co. is in these brilliant strings. And the drum machine from Cabaret Voltaire's "Walls of Jericho" hasn't sounded better in almost 30 years. Yet, for all the touches of legendary bands (and raps swiped from Vanilla Ice on the "Ice Ice Baby" re-write), 1000 is unmistakably Cheveu and takes the band to a whole new level of greatness. Look for Cheveu in the U.S.A. in late spring/early summer.

About Me

As long as DIY bands and artists keep me amazed, I will keep doing radio and extreme-blogging as a tribute to them. In case you are an old classmate looking for me, yes, this is "Rick Ele" here.
If you have material available in any format, please send it to...
KDVS Radio, ATTN: Music Dept, 14 Lower Freeborn Hall, Davis, CA 95616, USA (Please don't send it to my personal ATTN; you can trust KDVS Music Directors to get the good stuff added to the largest and best music library of any radio station this side of the Mississippi! And there are dozens of other really excellent DJs here who will play the good stuff if you send it!)
...wanna get in touch about anything else? rickele(AT)gmail(DOT)com